Richard Fulton - Mayor

Mayor

In 1975, Briley, the only mayor Nashville had ever had since its consolidation with Davidson County, was barred from a fourth term by the Metro Charter. A secretive group of Nashville business leaders known as "Watauga" (after the area in East Tennessee from which the original white settlers of Nashville had migrated), was not impressed with the prospective successors that they saw among local political leaders. They approached Fulton and promised him that he would almost certainly win if he ran. This proved prophetic, as Fulton won the race that year with almost a two-thirds majority. His only major opponent, Criminal Court Clerk Earl Hawkins, received about 25%. (In contrast, the third-place finisher, plumbing-supply store operator Ralph Cohen, received only about 6%.) He was succeeded in Washington by Clifford Allen.

Fulton's first term was not without controversy. He ran for governor in 1978, finishing third in the Democratic primary, behind flamboyant East Tennessee banker Jake Butcher and then-Public Service Commissioner Bob Clement. In 1979 he was challenged by engineer Dan Powers, a political novice who had the backing of Briley, and Helen Wills, an African-American who had retired from the United States Army as a lieutenant colonel. Fulton received only 53% of the vote, barely escaping a runoff against Powers. Apparently one of the problems some voters had with Fulton was that he ran for governor so soon after being elected mayor.

Fulton's second term for the most part went more smoothly, and his 1983 reelection came much more easily. In 1986 Fulton again ran for governor, again finishing third in the Democratic primary, behind state Speaker of the House Ned McWherter, and another Public Service Commissioner, Jane Eskind. This time, some of Fulton's detractors accused him of particularly heavy spending on public works projects in predominantly black areas of Nashville, and implied that this was a repeat of the pattern of eight years prior, with mysteriously little work having taken place in the area on these projects in the interim.

Fulton was the driving force behind the construction of the Nashville Convention Center in downtown Nashville during the mid-1980s. Almost immediately after its 1987 opening, it was considered antiquated: too small, somewhat inaccessible, and unable to expand. Another larger, privately owned convention center was already open at the Opryland Hotel just a few miles away during that time, causing the downtown convention center to be overshadowed almost from its beginning. Even now, the NCC primarily books small functions and local events, while the Opryland convention center draws more corporate events and conventions from out of town. Therefore, the Nashville Convention Center has always carried the nickname "Fulton's Folly" in some circles.